An Esper for an Eye
by animaniacj
Summary: High School was hard for Satoru, when isn't it? But being an esper just made it harder, until the day Hyoubu Kyousuke came and destroyed it all. What happens after sets Satoru on a path he never expected, but where will it lead? OC team.


**First Come, First Burn:**

My name is Satoru Mamozuke, and I'm currently getting beaten black and blue.

"Come on! Stop us with your mind!" Ragi taunted as he kicked me in the stomach again. "Let's see that all mighty power of yours!"

I just lay there, curled up as closely as I could, trying to make the pain go away. I had always been taunted at school, what esper wasn't? But this was the first time someone actually hurt me over it.

It was barely the end of the third day of high school and I was already making enemies. I always seemed to make them no mater what I tried to do. Try sports clubs? I'm altering my physical abilities. Try art? I manipulate people to like my work. Music? I steal other people's talents. I could never win, and I always ended up making my parent's move. I thought by now there would be _some_ cognitive growth in normal people, but I guess I was just wishing for too much.

"Come on Ragi, leave a small part of him for later." Sakaki said as he pulled Ragi back.

"I guess." Ragi spat at me. "Just stay out of my sight."

"No… problem." I groaned.

"What did you say?" Ragi stepped back toward me.

"Ragi, come on, you're dad's going to wonder where we are."

"Oh crap! Is it that late already?" Ragi began to run off, Sakaki right behind him. I just continued to lay in the ally I had been dragged to, trying to deal with the pain the best I could.

I had been read in fourth grade to be an esper, and life just went to crap past there. I wasn't even that good of an esper, even for being a level 4 psychokinetic. I could barely raise a tea set; much less push a person back. The best way I had thought of using my power was copying my mother's acupuncture books on chi flow. I found it was a lot easier to focus on a point than an entire figure.

Once the pain finally subsided enough for me to walk, I clawed my way up the side of the wall and hobbled out onto the street. This was a decently sized town, and I thought the closeness of the town would be accepting enough, yet wide enough to account to my personal tastes. But I guess the closeness of it all was a bit too tight.

I was the only esper in a fifty-mile radius.

I knew espers were sparse, being only five percent of over six billion people worldwide, but there were at least five or six other espers in the other schools I had been in.

I came out into a low-density shopping street and just kept on moving. I got the obvious gasps and words of disgust, but nobody actually came to help me. They all knew after the first day of school I was an esper, and even if there were people who sympathized me, or in the case of smaller children, found me cool, the neighbors would never stand an esper sympathizer.

That was, except for my neighbor.

"Dude, Satoru, what happened to you man?" Ryo asked as he noticed me from the bread stall.

"Oh, you know, another welcoming party." I groaned as some pain came from shoulder. I was quick to grab it and subdue it.

"Well, that's not a welcoming present I would want. Come on, let's get you home, I'm done shopping anyways."

"You really don't need to." I tried to wave him off. I didn't want someone else to suffer my fate.

"Nonsense, it looks like you can barely stand as it is." Ryo said as he lifted me up from my left, and most painful, side "Now let's move, you need some good rest and good food."

And so we hobbled on, stopping for short times for Ryo to readjust his grip on his groceries, and for me to sit. When we did get to our apartment building, we went directly to my room and I collapsed on the futon.

"Now that you're taken care of, what do you want? Chili or spaghetti?" Ryo asked as he pulled out a box of spaghetti noodles and a can of chili.

"No, I can't, that's you're food-"

"And it's food you'll never get if not for me. So chili it is then!" Ryo proclaimed as he dropped the packages back in the bag and made his way to the kitchen.

"Honestly, you don't need to-" I began as I sat up.

"And you're staying on that futon!" Ryo shouted from the kitchen without looking at me from the window. "I will be as neighborly as I want to be, be damned everyone else's opinions."

"Can I at least ask why you're being so nice?" I asked as I lay back down, letting a gentle throb go through my body.

"Are you kidding? Some of my best friends from back home are espers. They're no different from anyone else, they can just do things others can't. I honestly don't see the point to all the hate, people aren't exercised for being smart, now are they?"

"Ever heard of nerd?"

"Ever heard of being grateful for a free meal?" Ryo shot back. "But what I'm saying is, you're just better in a different way then others, there's nothing wrong with that."

"Tell that to the rest of the world."

"I would, just everyone's to arrogant or scared to care. It's kind of why I came here, this place was so excluded from esper activity that I thought I could start up some sort of free thinking group, but it seems like the media struck home with them."

"Yeah, espers don't tend to get good coverage. And even when they do, all of the negatives are still thrown in the faces of everyone." I chuckled. "It's just a lose-lose situation."

"Well, we just have to look toward a brighter future." Ryo called back. "Now just hold on for a few more minutes, and I'll get you some-"

I never heard the end of that sentence. Before I could say 'boom', the roof collapsed in a shockwave that threw me off the futon. If it weren't for me already dampening my pain, it would have hurt a lot more. A clump of the crumbling ceiling hit me on the head and I passed out.

When I came around, I couldn't believe what I saw. I knew that I had passed out in my living room, but now it was all gone, reduced to rubble. I was lucky that it was only the one piece that hit my head, because there were chunks large enough to crush me in half all around me. I could see the sky now, and it was pitch black, but not just from the dark of night, but the thick smoke in the sky. From the direction of the town I could see the flickering light of fire.

How many people died? How many were left alive like I was? What happened? Where was Ryo?

"Ryo?" I called out as I stumbled to my feet. Even with the deadening of my senses, I knew that my entire body was screaming from the movement. But if I could help anybody, that would be enough for me. "Ryo!" I called louder.

I found him, not because he responded, but because the wall between the living room and kitchen was gone, and lying there, with half cooked beef over his burned hand and a twisted neck, was Ryo, the only guy in the entire town who brought any joy to the day.

He didn't deserve to go the way he did. The world needed more people like him, and now the world was worse off for it.

"Was there a few lucky ones?" I heard a man say from behind me. I turned to face him with dropped hopes, because his tone was one of disgust. But I was with the sight of no one. "Up here plebian." I heard the man from above. I looked up and saw the strangest thing, and yet, a recognizable sight.

A boy more than a man, in a normal high school uniform with short, messy white hair was standing in the air with his hands in his pockets. The infamous Hyoubu Kyousuke, leader of the esper terrorist group PANDRA. But why in the world would he be here at this wreckage?

"I'll even be as so kind to tell you." Kyousuke said as he drifted down in front of me. "This was a place of evil toward espers. They made underground ECM's for nearly every anti-esper group in the country. Destroying it was a blessing. They had to put a fight however." Kyousuke sighed. "I had to blow it all up."

"You bastard!" I screamed as I went to punch the guy. My fist never moved past raising, however.

"My you are feisty for being such a crippled normal." Kyousuke tsked. "But I can't just leave you here alive, you might come against me later, and I really hate to have to see anyone suffer needlessly. So let's just end this painlessly for you shall we?" Kyousuke began gripping his hand, and I began to feel a pressure on my head. In immediate response, I stopped focusing on the rest of my body and forced my own psychokinesis against his, though it did little to slow him, but just as I felt I was about to pass out from the strain, I was let go.

I crumpled to the dusty floor. I weakly looked up at the man. He had a look of shock on his face before looking off toward the city. "Why was he not on the record." Kyousuke demanded. "I don't care about recency, I care about- what? How long?" Kyousuke sighed. "I'm truly sorry about this." He said somberly as he raised a hand.

Once again, I was out cold until a new sound came to my ears.

"We have one here!" A woman shouted. "Get over here! I'm losing him!"

I just smiled. I didn't care if I was going to die or not now. A beating, an explosion, near crushing, and all for what? A town that hated me and weapons to kill me. What would be the difference of one more casualty?

"One life is better than one casualty, get that in your head right now." The woman above me said to me directly. "Think about your family, how would they feel if you died?"

My family? I don't know, I had always been a burden to them, if I was gone, they would-

"Mourn you. I don't care how you see it, families do care. Don't give me crap otherwise. Now where's that medic!" She called out at the end. But she did have a point, my parents would mourn me, I might have been a burden, but they loved me. "Yeah, that's right, they love you, and I'm going to make sure you make it home."

"Sorry I'm late Kazumi, what's his condition?" A male voice asked.

"Ryo, good, I think he's good enough for teleportation." Kazumi said.

"Are you sure? He looks a bit beat up to-"

"Ryo, shut up and help me get him some proper care!" Kazumi snapped with urgency.

"Right, right." Ryo said in a hurry. "On your count."

"All right, three, two, one, now!"

I felt sudden suction and then a bed beneath me. I also heard the sudden gasps of Kazumi and Ryo.

"That was too much!" Ryo coughed.

"I thought you could do it!" Kazumi coughed.

"What's wrong you two?" An older man said as he came into the room we were in. "Where did you find _him_?" The question came quite accusingly.

"Near the edge of the town in a destroyed apartment building." Kazumi reported.

"Well, he's a lucky one. He's the only one anyone's found."

"Why would PANDRA do this?" Ryo asked. "It was a town in the middle of nowhere."

It was because the town supported anti-esper activity and machinery. Why else would pro-espers attack?

"They were making anti-esper equipment." Kazumi said.

"How do you know that?" The man asked.

"Because he thought it." Kazumi said.

"He's actually conscious?" The man asked in amazement. "How is that even possible?"

"I don't know, but it's how I've been able to keep alive long enough to get him here." Kazumi sighed.

"Is it really necessary to keep touching him though?" Ryo asked.

Touching me? Where?

"Ew. Nowhere like that." Kazumi said in disgust. Ryo gave a chuckle before I heard a sharp smack.

"But to be burned like that and be conscious is amazing." The man said.

I don't feel burned though. Or feel a hand on me anywhere. In fact, the only way I could tell I was on a bed was because of its tell-tail bounce. That's when the horrific fact came upon me.

"Mr. Masato? I don't think he can feel anything at all." Kazumi said.

* * *

I know that this story may not get all that much traffic, but any sort of feed back and comments would help greatly. Thanks for reading and stay in check on the story as a whole.


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